Spurts of Violence Punctuate Calm After Kenyan Vote Is Upheld

People on Sunday in Nairobi worked to put out a fire in a building where ethnic Kikuyus were living. Some protests and clashes erupted after a contested election was adjudicated.Credit
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

NAIROBI, Kenya — Patrick Ndirangu Mwangi had a bad day on Sunday.

When he stepped into his house around 10 a.m. after rioters chased him away the night before, he found everything cleaned out — his clothes, the pictures on his wall, his children’s schoolbooks, even his bed. And when he went next door to his pub, which he had built up over the years, coin by coin, he discovered it had been gutted by fire.

“It took me years to get all this, and I lost it all in minutes — minutes!” Mr. Mwangi said. “And there’s only one reason why: because I’m Kikuyu.”

The protests and clashes that erupted Saturday night in a handful of areas, minutes after the Supreme Court ruled that Uhuru Kenyatta was legitimately elected president, were nowhere near the scale of chaos during the last disputed election in 2007. But still there were pockets of trouble, with mobs venting their election-related frustrations, burning down houses, stoning cars, smashing windows and challenging police officers. According to witnesses and police officials, at least six people were killed.

The spurt of violence in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, where Mr. Mwangi lives, was a miniversion of the ethnically driven violence that convulsed Kenya in 2007 and early 2008. In many respects, it was more than déjà vu. Mr. Mwangi is a case in point. This was the second time a mob, furious about an election, wiped him out.

In December 2007, Raila Odinga, the leading politician from the Luo ethnic group, ran for president against an incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, who is an ethnic Kikuyu. Politics tend to be ethnically based in Kenya, and after vote-rigging was exposed and Mr. Odinga lost, his supporters rampaged across the country, killing hundreds of Kikuyu.

This time around, Mr. Odinga lost again to a Kikuyu, Mr. Kenyatta. And again, there was some evidence of vote-rigging. But the Supreme Court, after considering a lengthy complaint from Mr. Odinga, ruled Saturday that the election had been free and fair. And while the relatively few outbursts of violence were quickly doused by a heavy police presence, where they did flare up they followed the same bloody grooves as before.

In Kisumu, Mr. Odinga’s ethnic stronghold, young men battled with police officers on Saturday night and at least two protesters were shot to death. In 2007 and early 2008, scores of young Luo protesters were felled by police bullets.

In Mathare — a teeming, ethnically mixed slum where people dwell in sheet-metal shacks along the mushy banks of a rat-infested, garbage-strewn river — neighbors had turned on one another in 2007. That happened again on Saturday night, residents said, with angry Luo mobs attacking Kikuyus. But this time police officers quickly responded, and according to witnesses just one person, a Kikuyu barber, was killed.

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That heavy police presence did not help Mr. Mwangi, the entrepreneur who lost all his possessions and his business, both this time and in 2007.

“I built everything from shining shoes, shining shoes,” he said. “Can you imagine? And now I have zero again.”

“Actually,” he corrected himself, “minus zero.”

There are a few crucial reasons there were far fewer stories this time around like Mr. Mwangi’s. First, Mr. Odinga and other politicians urged their followers to stay calm and accept the decision of the Supreme Court; in 2007 and 2008, before the courts were overhauled and people had more faith in them, Mr. Odinga had called for protests.

Second, protests were outlawed during this election period, and armies of police officers were pre-emptively deployed to stomp out any dissent.

Third, most Kenyans have been extremely fearful of returning to the frightening days of 2007 and early 2008 when the country essentially shut down and Kenyans of all ethnic groups and socioeconomic classes suffered.

“People are angry about the court’s decision, no doubt,” said one Luo man in Kisumu who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared for his safety. “But everybody just wants to move on.”

And fourth, there is the International Criminal Court hanging over Kenya like a thick, black cloud. Both Mr. Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, have been charged with crimes against humanity, accused of organizing some of the violence during the last election period. They are scheduled to stand trial soon. Many Kenyans said this has served as a brake, making politicians of all stripes fearful of inciting any violence and then being hauled away.

A version of this article appears in print on April 1, 2013, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Spurts of Violence Punctuate Calm After Kenyan Vote Is Upheld. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe